The Valley Catholic
in the church
October 7, 2014
13
Opus Dei leader, Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, beatified in Madrid
MADRID (CNS) -- A Spanish bishop
who worked as an engineer before
becoming first prelate of the Opus Dei
movement has been beatified in his
native Madrid.
Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of
the Vatican’s Congregation for Saints’
Causes, said Bishop Alvaro del Portillo
was known for his “prudence and rectitude in evaluating events and people,
his justice in respecting the good name
and freedom of others, his fortitude
in facing up to physical or moral difficulties, and the temperance shown in
his sobriety and interior and exterior
mortification.”
“He was not a talkative person -- his
engineer’s training gave him habits of
intellectual rigor, conciseness and precision, enabling him to go straight to the
essence of problems and solve them,”
Cardinal Amato said at the Sept. 27
beatification Mass, held outdoors.
Blessed Alvaro, who died in 1994,
succeeded St. Josemaria Escriva de
Balaguer as head of the personal prelature of Opus Dei. Beatification is a step
toward sainthood.
Cardinal Amato told about 150,000
people from 80 countries that Blessed
‘...In the simplicity and
ordinariness of our daily
lives we can find a sure path
to holiness.’
The prelature of Opus Dei announced that
Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, the successor to
Opus Dei founder St. Jose Maria Escriva,
will be beatified Sept. 27 in Madrid. He is
pictured in an undated photo.(CNS photo/
courtesy of Opus Dei Information Office)
Alvaro had “a notable serenity and
considerateness, a habit of smiling, understanding, speaking well about others
and reflecting deeply before judging.”
“His humility was not harsh, showy
or ill-tempered, but affectionate and
cheerful -- his joy was based on his
conviction that he himself was worth
very little,” Cardinal Amato said, adding that such holiness is needed “to
counteract the pollution of immorality
and corruption.”
Born March 11, 1914, Blessed Alvaro
studied and taught at Madrid University’s school of engineering, later working briefly for the Spanish government’s
Bureau of Highways and Bridges.
He joined Opus Dei in 1935 and
became one of its first three priests in
June 1944. He had a doctorate in engineering but earned a second doctorate
in philosophy and history, and a third
in canon law from Rome’s Pontifical
University of St. Thomas Aquinas.
As secretary-general of Opus Dei,
he served as an expert, or peritus, at
the 1962-65 Second Vatican Council and
consultant for several post-conciliar
commissions, before succeeding the
late St. Josemaria as Opus Dei president.
Blessed Alvaro was appointed first
prelate of the movement in 1982 and
was consecrated a bishop in 1991 by St.
John Paul II.
Blessed Alvaro’s canonization cause
was launched in December 2002. In July
2013, Pope Francis signed a decree recognizing his intercession in the cure of
a Chilean newborn, Jose Ignacio Ureta
Wilson, who inexplicably revived after
a cardiac arrest lasting more than 30
minutes.
In a Sept. 27 letter, Pope Francis said
Blessed Alvaro had been a “faithful
collaborator” of St. Josemaria, adding
that his first meeting with the Opus Dei
founder had “definitively marked the
course of his life.”
He said the bishop’s life and work
were a reminder that “our poverty as
human beings is not the result of despair,
but of confident abandonment in God.”
“He is telling us to trust in the Lord
-- that he is our brother, our friend, who
never lets us down and is always at our
side,” Pope Francis said. “He is encouraging us not to be afraid to go against the
current and suffer for announcing the
Gospel. He is also teaching us that in the
simplicity and ordinariness of our daily
lives we can find a sure path to holiness.”
Deadline
Role of religion in U.S. public life has Americans divided, survey says
By Sarah McCarthy
Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON -- The role of religion in
U.S. public life has Americans divided.
In its fifth annual American Values
Survey presented Sept. 23, the Public
Religion Research Institute found that
46 percent of respondents were more
concerned about the government interfering with the ability of people to freely
practice their religion than they were
with religious groups trying to get laws
passed that force their beliefs on others.
Conversely, 46 percent were more
worried about the religious groups than
the government.
The figures were among the conclusions of a survey of 4,500 Americans of
different race, religion, gender and socioeconomic status that focused on their
perceptions of economic, political and
cultural issues facing the country today.
Partisan divides were evident in
the survey’s results, which showed 64
percent of Republicans were more concerned with government interference,
while 59 percent of Democrats were
more concerned about interference by
religious groups.
Alan Abramowitz, a professor of
political science at Emory University,
spoke as a panelist at the survey’s Sept.
23 release in Washington and c